5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar - Gates of Retribution (Might Normal 25)

I haven't kept up appropriately with Might's Siege of Orgrimmar progress like I did for Throne of Thunder, and at the time of my posting these we are currently 9/14H. This means that in order to catch this blog up a bit, I'll be posting the normal mode videos and summaries in bulk as per their LFR/Flex wing names.

This second post is the Gates of Retribution and will include write ups and video's for Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, The Dark Shaman and General Nazgrim.

GALAKRAS

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

The first boss of the Gates of Retribution is a beach siege - You join Lor'themar and his band of rag-tag Horde leaders (Or Wyrnn, I guess, if you're Alliance) on a boat where he leads you to the beach fronts outside the gates of Orgrimmar. Once again, the trash leading up to the boss emulates some of the mechanics of the encounter. There are varying dragonmaw forces, all of which also appear in the upcoming Galakras fight: Shaman who drop healing totems and who need to be interrupted, Bonecrushers who rush a target and deal a hard hitting cleave (Fracture), Flagbearers who drop buff banners similarly to the Shamans totem, simple melee Grunts and a few cannoneers/flameslingers who are token NPC hunters.

Clear the trash and destroy the cannons so that your fleet of boats can land. Standing on beach mines makes them blow up.

The encounter itself is fairly straight forward: A rush of Dragonmaw forces will descend upon you down the middle road. On the third wave a miniboss is spawned, and on the fourth wave a miniboss on the towers is spawned. You need to defeat both minibosses so that you can take control of the tower and the towers cannon. Repeat this for the second tower so you have control of both cannons and can shoot Galakras out of the sky.

Once you've grounded Galakras, you kill him. Periodically he will shoot out a fireball at a random player - this fireball does less damage on impact the more people it hits. Therefore, ensure that any Flames of Galakrond cast on you pass through the appropriate amount of people before you let it hit you and the ground. You cannot solo deterrence soak this, since everyone else will explode and die.

As a hunter there are a few jobs you may have. One, you might be AoEing the waves down below and defeating the ground miniboss. Two, you might be defending the tower and ensuring no grunts kill your demolition team. Three, you might be ascending the tower and freeing the cannon for your raids use. Depending on what your job is will dictate what specialization you choose. For example,
Survival is really strong suppression AoE. You can potentially have really high throughput AoEing as survival down below, but you still need to ensure priority targets die (totems, banners, shaman, bosses, etc). Beast Mastery is really strong burst, meaning you can both suppression AoE or single target with your bestial wrath sequences. If you're taking the rope up the tower, though, expect your pet to glitch out if you don't dismiss and resummon. Marksman is doable, particularly for priority target sniping, but your throughput will appear much lower. Base your needs on your role and the weak spots of your other raiders.

If any of your NPC leaders die, you lose - so make sure that Bonecrusher fractures get interrupted before they are slaughtered. Binding Shot can be useful for this, but so can Intimidation. Powershot or a glyphed explosive trap will also do the job, but preferably this is handled by somebody else.

IRON JUGGERNAUT

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

Once you've taken the beaches you run around the barricades and come across a gigantic, metal scorpion, mounted with a hellfire grate face and a dragon skull cannon. Just to be even more terrifying, its tail is a laser and its arms were replaced with a detachable saw and a bore drill. Luckily, the Iron Juggernaut is fairly straight forward and one of the only single target turret fights you'll see in the Siege of Orgrimmar as a hunter.

In phase one you have a few jobs: Hit the Iron Juggernaut as hard as you can, avoid giant red circles as soon as they show up and run away from streaks of ground spikes that will chase you around for a while. Every once in a while Iron Juggernaut will also spawn a set of mines - these mines need to be stepped on by players so that they don't explode on the rest of the raid. Generally this will be handled by your tanks, but in an emergency you can soak it with deterrence. Make sure you put deterrence up BEFORE you click, and subsequently step, on the mines face. You will be thrown into the air, but you can avoid the falling damage by disengaging before you land.

In phase two you will be taking a constant AoE of damage. Avoid the tar puddles that will be thrown at random players. The Iron Juggernaut will also focus on players with his tail laser, and if this laser hits any tar puddles the raid explodes - so make sure the path of the laser doesn't cross any tar while it chases you. Before phase one begins again, the boss will cast a few Shock Pulses - these Shock Pulses are a massive AoE knockback. You will fly until you hit something, so make sure your back is to some sort of nearby wall or that your raid is being knocked in the same direction. What you don't want is to be knocked back into the middle of nowhere 400 yards away from any healers. Alternatively, avoid the Shock Pulse entirely by using Deterrence before it finishes casting. You won't take damage and you won't be knocked back.

As for your specialization, it will depend on your current gear set and your preferred single target play style. Any of the three specs will be sufficient and deal a strong amount of single target - but, for example, if you have 2pc or 4pc and an Assurance of Consequence trinket, you might prefer playing Beast Mastery [especially since your pet will ignore all the mechanics]. However, if you have a heroic warforged bow you might prefer Marksmanship. Alternatively, maybe you have 4pc and your gear is relatively even in terms of ilevel and effectiveness - so maybe you'd prefer Survival. All in all, do what will bring you, as a player, the most single target.

KOR'KRON DARK SHAMAN

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

After a year and a half of clearing out trash in the Valley of Strength, you'll find the gates leading to the drag closed off. This is because the Kor'kron Dark Shaman are hiding inside the new Orgrimmar throne room -- on top of their Dire Wolves, for some odd reason. It's like wearing a hat, sunglasses or having your umbrella open while indoors. Didn't anyone tell them you can't mount up while in buildings?

You can pull them out or fight one of them inside - all of this depends on your raid strategy. Chances are you'll pull them out together on normal and keep them together for cleave damage, sans slime spawns. If you take one thing away from this write up, take this: Always keep one step ahead of the Shaman. Your tanks will be moving a lot, and you don't want to be caught near melee when slimes spawn, be on the area where the fire wall spawns, or be inside of a tornado when they spawn. Stay away from people with green arrows, as a giant green pillar of slime will erupt from the boss in whichever direction that individual is located.

Most people prefer to play Survival for this so they can maintain ISS on both mobs, while also having strong AoE power for slimes. Barrage lines up with the spawns every time, so you can hold it for that and wrack up some crazy throughput spikes getting rid of them. For normal I preferred Beast Mastery as my AoE spec, so I used Beast Cleave on the shaman and to take care of the slimes. The burst was too useful to pass up. Other people are also playing Marksman, not for its damage power, but for the mass slow from Concussive Barrage. Again, make the decision based on your raids roles and weaknesses.

GENERAL NAZGRIM

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

General Nazgrim is the final boss in the Gates of Retribution wing. You can find him inside of Ragefire Chasm, protecting the gates to the rest of the instance. To get there, you have to pass waves of trash similar to the adds you'll face in the boss encounter itself. Arcane mages that drop large AoE puddles that give you a very painful DoT; Assassins who will fixate a target and, if in range of a players back, hit them extremely hard with a backstab ability; Shaman, who will drop healing tide totems and heal - it's recommended to pull out one at a time to get them down in lieu of their totems; and, finally, Ironblades who will do an AoE bladestorm ability.

Nazgrim himself is pretty straight forward. Like a warrior, he stance dances: in Battle stance you deal normal damage to him, he deals normal damage to you, and generates 1 rage per second. In Berserker stance, you deal 25% damage to him, he deals 25% damage to you and generates 2 rage per second. In Defensive stance he takes 10% less damage, generates 1 rage per second, but generates 3 rage any time he is attacked.

The course of the fight, then, is to manage adds while dealing as much to Nazgrim in battle/berserker stance as you can. Every 15 seconds he uses a special ability, depending on what his rage level is at.
Heroic Shockwave costs 30 rage - Nazgrim will leap to a player and cause a large shockwave of orange to appear on the ground. Move out of this, because it will erupt for a lot of damage. Getting hit by the aftershock of the shockwave will probably kill you.
At 50 rage Nazgrim will summon a Kor'kron Banner - any attacks that adds deal will grant Nazgrim rage, so kill it quickly.
War Song costs 70 rage and is a raid wide AoE for 50% of the raids health. You can deterrence this.
Ravager costs 100 rage, whereby Nazgrim throws a weapon in the direction of a random player. This weapon does not despawn, is not targetable, and continues to spin back and forth between the location it was thrown at. This deals a lot of damage and also grants Nazgrim 5 rage any time someone takes damage. This quickly adds up, so avoid Ravagers at all costs.

Ironblades are a piece of cake. Pick them off while they're off tanked. Prioritize them last.
Kor'kron Assassins are also a piece of cake for you. If nobody is giving yours a slow, put on concussive shot (or concussive barrage, if you're marksman). Do not let it backstab you. Scatter Shot, Ice Trap (slow), Binding Shot, Disengage etc - anything that can disrupt the Assassin will, sans Frost Trap (block). Theoretically you can Flare these out, but I've had mixed results.
Arcweavers can be deadly if they are not interrupted. Any successful Arcane Shock casts deals damage and buffs the arcweaver for 25% damage. They will likely then cast Magistrike, a high AoE that leaves a potent DoT. If you miss the Arcane Shock interrupts, definitely interrupt the Magistrike.
Warshamans heal - they cast Earth Shield on ally's, including Nazgrim; they also cast Empowered Chain Heal and summon Healing Tide Totems. Keep these mobs away from Nazgrim, kill any totems that spawn, interrupt its chain heal and dispel the Earth Shield. As a hunter, you can do all of these things.

That said, you cannot do every single thing. Make sure you prioritize your job appropriately for your raid. If nobody is interrupting Magistrike, do it so nobody dies. If nobody is killing the totem, do it so that nothing heals. If Nazgrim has Earth Shield, get rid of it. Don't be killed by Assassins while you kite, etc.

Survival is strong for add suppression, especially if they're frequently grouped up. Beast Mastery has trouble with pet movement, but the pet does not grant Nazgrim rage and can be planted on the boss. If there's an emergency and you need add cleanup, you can always pull it to the back with Blink Strike and AoE Bestial Wrath Beast Cleave to catch up. Marksman won't have the same damage control, but it can be useful with Concussive Barrage and the blanket silence from Silencing Shot.